New Power

Ch 22

Irealia seemed to know the Chancellor well. They talked about the information she had apparently gathered while Cain and Fives stood off to the side. Cain grabbed his bounty once they had a break in their conversation and walked out with Fives trailing behind.

Cain's comm chimed and he picked it up through his helmet.
"Yes?" Cain asked in the comm.

"Skywalker here. You have not forgotten about our training session have you?"

Cain froze. "Not at all. Can Fives come?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not. Meet me in the training room asap. Ahsoka and I are already there."

"Yeah sure sure. We'll see you soon."

Fives motioned to the case of credits Cain was holding. "Where you gonna put that?"

"My quarters are on the way to the training room. We'll drop by there."

~~~~<+>~~~~

After dropping the credits off, they realised they were quite late and ran to the training room.

"You are quite late," Anakin smirked with his arms crossed. Cain put his helmet down by the door.

"What's our training session for today? I didn't look," Cain said.

"You've got a lightsaber. Time to make use of it."

Cain felt dread settle in. "What happens if I injure myself?"

"We'll take you straight to the medics," Ahsoka said.

"So, today we are going to get you used to using a lightsaber. You may use any Form or dirty tricks to spar," Anakin instructed, igniting his own blue lightsaber. Cain took his off of the clip it was on his belt and looked it over before igniting it. Its indigo blade shimmered into existence. Fives and Ahsoka stood off to the side, well out of the way.

Anakin charged at Cain and struck his lightsaber. The clash of the weapons filled the air; a lot louder than Cain had expected. The lightsabers hummed together as Cain used Form I as his choice in combat. He struck Anakin's blade multiple times before changing into defense. Anakin attacked, trying to break Cain's defense but he held strong against the experienced Jedi.

Cain and Anakin sparred for multiple minutes on end, no breaks in between. Anakin seemed fine, but Cain was starting to tire. As Cain went to strike Anakin's lightsaber, he felt red hot searing pain erupt in his leg. He fell to the ground on one knee and tried to breathe through the pain to nearly no avail. He cried out and dropped his lightsaber, it extinguishing beside him. Moments later he felt Anakin put his arm around him and help him to his feet. Fives was on Cain's other side helping Anakin.

They took him straight to Kix to get checked and patched up. The pain felt so intense that Cain felt he could barely hear or see.

~~~~<+>~~~~

A beeping machine in the medbay was what Cain woke to. He tried to move his leg, but it felt like it was on fire. He looked beside himself to see Fives sitting on a chair taking a nap, and Ahsoka and Anakin talking to Kix.

"How's your leg?" Anakin asked when he noticed Cain was awake.

"Fire," Cain groaned out.

Anakin nodded. "I expected that much. Kix says you have to stay here for a while."

Cain managed to prop himself up without hurting himself much. "How long?"

"Until your leg is almost completely healed. It's a third-degree burn."

He winced. "Damn."

"I hope you'll enjoy your stay. We've gotta help liberate the Togruta people from the hands of the Separatists. We should be back soon." Anakin paused. "We leave in a couple of days, so we may see you before we leave."

"Have they enslaved the Togruta people in their own world?"

"It seems that way. We've gotta be quick. Get better soon. We all need you." Anakin grabbed Ahsoka's hand. "C'mon Snips, we better get moving."

"You're not taking Fives with you?"

Anakin raised a brow and smirked. "I thought you always-"

"I'm not saying I don't want him here. I'm saying, don't you need him on the battlefield?"

Anakin laughed. "He's part of a reinforcement team for Master Plo Koon and the Wolf Pack. He should be back before we get back."

Cain smiled. "Nice to know. Thanks. And I hope your mission doesn't go wrong."

"Don't jinx it. We'll see you soon."

The two Jedi walked out of the room and Ahsoka called out to Cain. "Don't go walking around and making yourself worse!" She said.

"I won't, Ahsoka. Don't worry," Cain replied with a slight eye roll.

~~~~<+>~~~~

Fives stirred beside Cain and Cain took an earbud out.

"When do you leave?" He asked. Fives immediately sat up.

"Oh Force you reminded me. But that's tomorrow," Fives said relieved and sunk back into the chair. "I haven't been sleeping that long, have I?"

"Not at all. It's 1535 at the moment."

Fives noticed the earbuds that Cain had. "What are you listening to?"

Cain blushed. "Oh uh, it's.. different."

"I don't get to listen to any music apart from 79's and cultural performances we see in missions."

Cain hesitated and then adjusted the earbuds so it had maximum movement between them. "Here. It's different from what you'd usually hear, but it's good."

Fives put it in his ear and eyes slightly widened. "It is different, but it's good. How long have you listened to stuff like this?"

"Since my childhood. Actually, this playlist that I've mushed together is quite a few years old. I've had it since I was fourteen."

"How much is here?"

"A lot. It'd take you about a week to listen to all of it without any breaks."

"That's a long time. But I'd like to listen to all of it one day." Fives smiled.

Cain smiled back. "We'll have to see how that goes."